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I never thought i'd ever see it:

wow JUST WOW

http://www0.epinions.com/content_3345850500

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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

I don't feel like this vindicates the game, because as I told you, I don't think it needs vindicating. I don't think it deserves to be called the best RPG ever made, but it was a great game and a major innovator for the series. And after all, it's one person's opinion, but many others have praised it in the same way before.

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Praise Be To Helix!

I'm not saying it does deserve to be treated as the best game ever.

My reaction is that of surprise.

I was like:has the world gone insane? or has my head just exploded?

Its been a while that a game has been listed above ff7.

And its also hilarious the guy puts down ff6 as overrated and lists ff7 as second best when ff7 fans outnumber ff6 fans 2-1.

especially since:

FF7 separates fanbase
it gets the most hype and praise and is the most aggressive.
Gets hate from a lot of people due to its ignorant fanbase.



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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

I have a friend who considers IV his favourite game. I don't think it's that unusual, it's the game that's responsible for the feel of the mid-period games in the series, which are some of the most influential, if not the best, RPGs ever. I'd say it's in my top 5, easy.

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

Quote (trismegistus @ 11th July 2010 19:29)

I have a friend who considers IV his favourite game. I don't think it's that unusual, it's the game that's responsible for the feel of the mid-period games in the series, which are some of the most influential, if not the best, RPGs ever. I'd say it's in my top 5, easy.

It's in my top 3, honestly. I've always felt that it FF7 and FF6 are the best of the series. It definitely has a memorable style.

And Slayer, I know how you feel. I felt the same way when I heard Yahtzee say what he did about FF6. It's because we feel a personal connection to these games because we love them so much, that we root for them.

What I meant is to say that people should see that FF4 is not only important, but memorable.

I also have to say, that is the first time I've seen someone call FF6 overrated. I was shocked at first, but I guess with the praise it gets you can make an argument for that. The phrase, be careful what you ask for comes to mind.

I don't agree with a lot of what he said (especially about 6's soundtrack), but I am glad he gave 7 and 4 praise.

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Praise Be To Helix!

I think is a great game not overrated by any means but IV is still my favorite. Just something about 4 makes me always go back and play it. It remains my favorite game ever. The music is joyous when it needs to be and sad when it needs to be. The characters each have their own abilities which makes them unique. Even some of the characters you get throughout like Cid and Yang are fun to play with. Maybe because it was the first Final Fantasy I beat but this game remains my favorite. I can play it over and over and never get tired of it. I was so excited when i beat Zeromus and that darn evil wall. To me the them of this game is redemption. Cain, Cecil, and Golbeze all needed redemption for their past acts.

To me nowadays the graphics are better but the characters don't connect as well as they do in the older versions.

I know that some people look down upon the remakes of ff4 like:ds version and the advance version.

I actually beat the advance version and must say that its nice being able to change characters for ones you like.

I actually picked up yang and played as him over edge,because he is one of my favorite characters.

I also had fun being able to use cid.

the only real downside,is that these alternative characters can sometimes be slightly underpowered to their counter side or overpowered to the boss.

When i had every single weapon in the game+ all my characters equipped with the adamant armor,i was able to kill the bosses easily.

Cecil's final sword procs white or some spell like that which does:6-7k

So in truth,you add the dmg cecil does with his sword+the proc=12-15k dmg for every time he procs.

Others:The other ons are also pretty powerfull,but i think cecil is really overpowered.


FF4 ds:i have to get back to it.

Its a pretty hard game and does prove to be a challenge,if you want a challenging game,go to ff4 ds which is harder than both snes and gba version.

Music:some of the remixes in the remakes sound rather canned.

This really makes them sound not as good as the originals.

Some of them are very nice like:the village theme with all violins.

I actually like the ds version over the original.

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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Why do we care about one random internet person listing an individual opinion? This is nothing to get excited over, folks. It's nothing to get ANYTHING over, folks.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

OH CMON!! this a ff4 place and i was giving my opinion about ds and advance.



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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Quote (Magitek_slayer @ 12th July 2010 10:15)

OH CMON!! this a ff4 place and i was giving my opinion about ds and advance.

He's got a point, though it's not how I would have phrased it. If you wanted to give your opinion about some versions of the game, why did you make a topic about someone else's opinion?

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (laszlow @ 12th July 2010 11:11)

Why do we care about one random internet person listing an individual opinion? This is nothing to get excited over, folks. It's nothing to get ANYTHING over, folks.

Well, we've all been in that situation where we have our favorite game, somebody gave it praise and we were excited about it. But I mostly agree with laszlow here. It is someone's individual opinion. Not to say it isn't okay for him to have that opinion, but it's just his subjective opinion, and many other people could've made a similar list and not included the game. I know you like FF4, and it feels good to have people agree with you, but you don't need some random person's opinion for justification. Many people enjoyed this game, and it has garnered high praise. And it is often considered one of the best of the series.

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Praise Be To Helix!

A long time ago, I too probably would've put FF4 at the top of my list. It was an extremely influential game for my journey into RPGs and was always one of my favorites. Sadly, the remakes have diluted the experience a little for me, as neither has truly captured what I loved about the original SNES version. I don't think it's a stretch for somebody's love of FF4 to keep it at the top of their list.

According to the website, the list was originally created in 2003 and updated in 2010. My two favorite games in 2003 are still my two favorites now - once something occupies those top spots, it's VERY hard to move them away.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

I'm just happy that someone agrees with me about ff4 and feels that it deserves recognition.

In the past when ff6 and ff7 came out,ff4 was overshadowed by those 2 towering above it.

FF4 ff5 and even chrono trigger got less attention.

Remakes with better graphics is the only option to get people who care about graphics to play these classics.

The problem though,they have to be extra careful not to ruin the game by taking something out or ruining the experience by changing the phrasing in a re translation

I loved the original ff4 for the snes and i didn't care about the translation.

At least the new remakes add some extra content.

Overall,remakes aren't meant to make a huge change in a game that is loved,its like a remake of a movie you love.

If you make too much drastic changes,you might not love it anymore.

Its about trying to make the game presentable and yet acceptable and liked to older retro gamers and new gamers.

There are some people who simply refuse to play the original snes version because its in 2d graphics which are even older than ff6.

Perhaps if the kid is given the game by his dad and say:here play a cult classic rpg game from my days,its a game i love.

And or at least the father to maybe show the kid that graphics don't matter if the game is good.

Another problem is,we many not experience the game the way we experienced it when we were younger.

Maybe there was a little nostalgia in there,maybe not.



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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

But people who won't play a game because of graphics are depriving themselves to me. Graphics don't mean anything if the game isn't fun. My earliest memory was that my older brother rented this game and would stay up all night on the snes trying to beat the game before he returned it. I would sit there watching and that is what drew me to this game. The more and more I see about this game the more people seem to come to enjoy it. More people generally enjoy VI and VII more but I have seen a lot of praise for this game. This was the first FF on the SNES so to me they did an excellent job with maxing out the systems capability.

That is why i said:

It has to be a combination of things:

Well done in modern graphics and without ruining the message

Some games get it right and others don't



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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Quote (Magitek_slayer @ 11th July 2010 23:40)

I was like:has the world gone insane? or has my head just exploded?

Its been a while that a game has been listed above ff7.

I've never seen FFVII as the best game ever on any list, whether it's all-time greatest game, RPG, Square-Enix game, or Japanese game. Maybe I've not looked at enough game lists, but I think you're fighting a straw dummy there.

Does FFIV really need so much recognition? I think it's doing pretty well for itself.

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Quote (sweetdude @ 12th July 2010 20:33)

Quote (Magitek_slayer @ 11th July 2010 23:40)

I was like:has the world gone insane? or has my head just exploded?

Its been a while that a game has been listed above ff7.

I've never seen FFVII as the best game ever on any list, whether it's all-time greatest game, RPG, Square-Enix game, or Japanese game. Maybe I've not looked at enough game lists, but I think you're fighting a straw dummy there.

Does FFIV really need so much recognition? I think it's doing pretty well for itself.

Uh i don't want to be rude,but where have you been living? under a rock?

FF7 is almost always listed by the fanboys as the best game ever and or they might list ff6 or even ff8 and ff9 above 4.

So yes,this is a rare occasion that i see it getting high ratings.

It doesn't really matter though since it all boils down to opinions.

And we all know opinions differ.

What i mean by this whole thread,i'm happy that ff4 is gaining more recognition,i really am.

As long as they don't ruin the message of the game or ruin the character,i'm fine with them making a remake.

I'm a fan of cecil kain rosa rydia yang etc.



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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Quote (Magitek_slayer @ 12th July 2010 16:55)

It doesn't really matter though since it all boils down to opinions.

And we all know opinions differ.

Gotta tell you, this is the truest statement I've ever gleaned from one of your posts. It's exactly why a couple people, including me, questioned why it was really a big discussion topic.

Carry on, though, don't let me stop you.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Final Fantasy 4 is my favourite FF so it doesnt surprise me, however I think that some other games should have been listed higher. For example: FF2, FF3 and FF5 need more love

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Stay Free

I played ff2 nes and ff3 nes,and i honestly think they don't deserve that high a place amongst the final fantasy series.

Neither of them are that great.

Sure ff2 was advanced in the way that the characters weren't just some random guys and had personalities.

But,the game play was unbalanced and really got on peoples nerves.

ff3 had ok game play,but if i wanted to play better game play game,i'd play the first dragon warrior which i like more.

FF5 could do with a little more praise for its interesting game play.

And ff4 does get a lot of praise lately,but i'm still really happy about it since it deserves it.

If there is any game i wish in the series for praise:it was this one and maybe a little towards ff5.

This post has been edited by Magitek_slayer on 24th November 2010 13:45

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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Final Fantasy IV is a fun game. It's quick and easy to play. It has a reasonably interesting storyline, although its setting is a fantasy kitchen sink of basically arbitrary fantasy elements thrown together in the style of its predecessors, so it doesn't quite fit together very well.

The music could also be better, but the soundtrack does contain a lot of gems, such as the boss battle music, the sad music, the final boss music, and Cecil's, Rosa's, and Edward's themes.

That said, FF4 isn't that great of a game.

For starters, I don't like the huge disparity between mages and physical attackers--it's somewhat muted by endgame, but here's what it's like at the beginning of the game:
* Cecil: deals 60 damage per hit, consistently (i.e. like 90% hit rate)
* Rydia: deals 5 damage per hit, very inconsistently (i.e. like 10% hit rate)

...seriously, what.

Incidentally, that's why I like Edward. Because, while he only hits for like 30 damage, and only about 70% of the time, he ''actually hits stuff''.

A second point is the script, setting, and plot. A lot of lines could be better written. A lot of events could be connected better, rather than things happening out of thin air--such as "Suddenly, the man behind the man is revealed!", with little to no foreshadowing--it's like the game master suddenly throwing the players a curveball for the sake of convenience.

As I've noted, later games, starting in FFV, have more coherent settings that aren't fantasy kitchen sinks, and this may be why they also have more coherent plots.

That said, one thing I really like about FF4 is that it has probably THE QUICKEST spell animations, EVER. Lit-3 takes the cake here. In the door and back out the door in about a second or less. Not even Golden Sun can boast spell animations that fast, even with animation skipping. I mean...it's like

vw'JAOMM! done. next move!

Quote

It was an extremely influential game for my journey into RPGs

I know some people rate things highly because of their legacy value--such as FF1 for starting the series or FF7 for growing the fanbase significantly. I disagree with this; just because something was influential or or kicked off something awesome doesn't mean that it itself is awesome. I appreciate the contributions of such entries, but that doesn't mean that their quality is that high, and I don't think this should give it a boost.

That said, FF4 is in fact my first FF game, and third RPG (after Super Mario RPG and Pokémon).

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 16th November 2010 18:59

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I just now found this thread. That's a pretty strange list. It lists Actraiser as an RPG even though it's a platformer (even though it has some simulation stuff in it, it's definitely not an RPG), and a whole slew of adventure games (LTTP, soul blazer, illusion of gaia, etc). I'm surprised Super Metroid wasn't on that list. The most glaring omission though is 7th Saga. Any top 50 list with Saga is a sin.

So yea, don't put much faith in that list.

In other news, FFIV is a really, really good game. Definitely not surprised at all that it's someone's favorite.

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Is PJ

I think that FF IV deserves it ! It kind of has good graphics, amazing sound and a really solid plotline for it's time. Plus the Nintendo DS remake was really well made *Claps * Cheers for FF IV !

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Currently playing Chrono Trigger !!
Currently looking forward to Don't Know.

Quote (ZidaneTribal @ 18th November 2010 07:54)

I think that FF IV deserves it ! It kind of  has good graphics, amazing sound and a really solid plotline for it's time. Plus the Nintendo DS remake was really well made *Claps * Cheers for FF IV !

I love the kind of, lol. No, I think it does, clearly, have all of those things. I think that it was the game that started it all. When I think of FF, I think of FFIV. It does deserve a lot of credit, not just in the series or in the RPG genre. The game came around at a time when video games barely told stories. This is the game that proved they could. There could be no FFVI-IX, Bioshock, God of War, etc. without it.

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Praise Be To Helix!

Quote (BlitzSage @ 18th November 2010 15:29)

It does deserve a lot of credit, not just in the series or in the RPG genre. The game came around at a time when video games barely told stories. This is the game that proved they could. There could be no FFVI-IX, Bioshock, God of War, etc. without it.

I'm sorry, I just can't agree with that statement. You seriously think that it was a breakthrough in videogame storytelling? Dragon Quest IV's character-centric chapters and mNinja Gaiden I-III's cutscenes were equally if not more groundbreaking that FF IV's story of redemption and betrayal.

Don't get me wrong, I love FF IV, but it's not exactly the earth-shattering storytelling breakthrough that you seem to think it is.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Quote (laszlow @ 18th November 2010 19:42)

Quote (BlitzSage @ 18th November 2010 15:29)

It does deserve a lot of credit, not just in the series or in the RPG genre. The game came around at a time when video games barely told stories. This is the game that proved they could. There could be no FFVI-IX, Bioshock, God of War, etc. without it.

I'm sorry, I just can't agree with that statement. You seriously think that it was a breakthrough in videogame storytelling? Dragon Quest IV's character-centric chapters and mNinja Gaiden I-III's cutscenes were equally if not more groundbreaking that FF IV's story of redemption and betrayal.

Don't get me wrong, I love FF IV, but it's not exactly the earth-shattering storytelling breakthrough that you seem to think it is.

Oh, I'm completely ignorant of Dragon Quest. It has at least been influential for the FF series. And I would think that Final Fantasy has had a bit more influence over video games then DQ, just out of sheer popularity.

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Praise Be To Helix!

Well, the FF series has been more popular than the DQ series in the west, while the reverse is true in Japan.

So you could say that FFIV influenced the JRPG genre in the west. Though I wouldn't say it really had very much influence in the perception of JRPGs in the west--at least, it pales in comparison to much bigger splashes likes FFVII.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I think it's difficult to overstate Dragon Quest's significance because, to be honest, it was the first JRPG. The Western games took after Dungeons and Dragons, and while DQ modeled itself after those games to an extent, it also added something unique to the genre. I think DQ can be compared to VII in that regard; there were others before it, but it really altered the gaming landscape, in fact there's no question that the original Final Fantasy itself was Square trying to rip off Dragon Quest in the same way it had ripped off Space Harrier and Outrun before it. The main difference, at least in this fan's eyes, is that Final Fantasy, unlike 3D World Runner or Rad Racer, was a game that improved on its source material.

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

I don't really know why I'm commenting here, except to say this. Final Fantasy IV is a good game, which does not necessarily equate to being a good role-playing game. I feel the same way about FFVIII - which is, by the way, either my favorite or my #2, battling back and forth with FFVI. So, letting someone believe it to be the best means one thing: they liked the game. The story of a good guy gone bad drew them in. And the fact that the RPG allowed for a clear progression in character with no change in player skill appealed to them.

Quote

The main difference, at least in this fan's eyes, is that Final Fantasy, unlike 3D World Runner or Rad Racer, was a game that improved on its source material.

Well, I'd say FFI certainly did, because it's basically a tabletop campaign packaged into a videogame, with perhaps a tad bit less customizability or off-rails gameplay, but with a significantly simplified battling system. It's biggest advantage was probably that it was basically D&D without scheduling hassles or tactical complication.

So for this discussion, we should be paying attention to what features FFIV introduced that improved on the genre, for its fans.

Here are some major new (or semi-new) features in FFIV:
* Active Time Battle (ATB)
* turn-based battle commands for each character individually (as opposed to giving instructions to the whole team and letting it rip)
* highly variable party
* 5-member party (never used again, for some reason, though games like FFTA have 6-member parties)
* pre-specified stats for playable characters (i.e. no character class changing or stat tweaking)
* on a similar note, pre-specified character classes
* MP system for magic
* battle screen with background (probably from the increased graphical capability)
* an involved storyline and non-"blank slate" characters (kinda started in FF2, but that wasn't released overseas and is the black sheep of the series anyway); it's notable that this evolved into the selling point of JRPGs--the focus on plot (along with the (arguable) neglect of customizability)
* preset formations (choose between front/back/front/back/front or the reverse; this was also never seen again)
* playable character death
...did I miss anything else?

If we're discussing FFIV's merits on the basis of how groundbreaking a game it is, we should be discussing whether these features represent a much better line of RPG design traditions than what they replaced.

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )